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The greatest managers in the world seem to have little in common. They differ in sex, age, and race. They employ vastly different styles and focus on different goals. Yet despite their differences, great managers share one common trait: They do not hesitate to break virtually every rule held sacred by conventional wisdom. They do not believe that, with enough training, a person can achieve anything he sets his mind to. They do not try to help people overcome their weaknesses. They consistently disregard the golden rule. And, yes, they even play favorites. This amazing book explains why.

Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman of the Gallup Organization present the remarkable findings of their massive in-depth study of great managers across a wide variety of situations. Some were in leadership positions. Others were front-line supervisors. Some were in Fortune 500 companies; others were key players in small, entrepreneurial companies. Whatever their situations, the managers who ultimately became the focus of Gallup's research were invariably those who excelled at turning each employee's talent into performance.

In today's tight labor markets, companies compete to find and keep the best employees, using pay, benefits, promotions, and training. But these well-intentioned efforts often miss the mark. The front-line manager is the key to attracting and retaining talented employees. No matter how generous its pay or how renowned its training, the company that lacks great front-line managers will suffer.

Buckingham and Coffman explain how the best managers select an employee for talent rather than for skills or experience; how they set expectations for him or her -- they define the right outcomes rather than the right steps; how they motivate people -- they build on each person's unique strengths rather than trying to fix his weaknesses; and, finally, how great managers develop people -- they find the right fit for each person, not the next rung on the ladder. And perhaps most important, this research -- which initially generated thousands of different survey questions on the subject of employee opinion -- finally produced the twelve simple questions that work to distinguish the strongest departments of a company from all the rest. This book is the first to present this essential measuring stick and to prove the link between employee opinions and productivity, profit, customer satisfaction, and the rate of turnover.

There are vital performance and career lessons here for managers at every level, and, best of all, the book shows you how to apply them to your own situation.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman expose the fallacies of standard management thinking in First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently. In seven chapters, the two consultants for the Gallup Organization debunk some dearly held notions about management, such as "treat people as you like to be treated"; "people are capable of almost anything"; and "a manager's role is diminishing in today's economy." "Great managers are revolutionaries," the authors write. "This book will take you inside the minds of these managers to explain why they have toppled conventional wisdom and reveal the new truths they have forged in its place."

The authors have culled their observations from more than 80,000 interviews conducted by Gallup during the past 25 years. Quoting leaders such as basketball coach Phil Jackson, Buckingham and Coffman outline "four keys" to becoming an excellent manager: Finding the right fit for employees, focusing on strengths of employees, defining the right results, and selecting staff for talent--not just knowledge and skills. First, Break All the Rules offers specific techniques for helping people perform better on the job. For instance, the authors show ways to structure a trial period for a new worker and how to create a pay plan that rewards people for their expertise instead of how fast they climb the company ladder. "The point is to focus people toward performance," they write. "The manager is, and should be, totally responsible for this." Written in plain English and well organized, this book tells you exactly how to improve as a supervisor. --Dan Ring

The authors, both management consultants for the Gallup Organization, use the company's study of 80,000 managers in 400 companies to reach the conclusion that a company that lacks great frontline managers will bleed talent, no matter how attractive the compensation packages and training opportunities. With this in mind, they sought the answers to the follow-up questions: "How do great managers find, focus and keep talented employees." Using case studies, diagrams, and excerpts from interviews, Buckingham and Coffman guide us through their findings that discipline, focus, trust, and, most important, willingness to treat each employee as an individual are the overall secrets for turning talent into lasting performance. The book concludes with suggestions on how to become a great manager, including ideas for interviewing for talent, how to develop a performance management routine, and how to get the best performance from talented employees. Although this is clearly an infomercial for the Gallup Organization, it nevertheless offers thoughtful advice on the essential task of developing excellent managers. Mary Whaley

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There are a few good common sense ideas in this book. For example: 1.It's hard to change people; 2. Make the most of an employee's talents instead of trying to fix their weaknesses; 3. Don't micro-manage; 4. A good way of doing something is not simply the opposite of a bad way. The authors then contend that these ideas go against conventional wisdom. I don't know what conventional wisdom they are talking about since it agrees with most of mine. But then again I went to an engineering school, not a business school. After presenting these ideas there is not much else in the book except a series of disconnected management anecdotes. Curiously most of these anecdotes are examples of bad management. This is in direct contradiction to idea 4 above, which the authors spent several pages discussing. I think the first example of good management was about halfway through the book when they started to talk about Southwest Airlines. (Actually if someone wants to write a good management book, do a case study on Southwest Airlines.) Also most of the examples deal with restaraunts, hotels, and banks with almost none from a high tech or software business. Finally I think (and this is conventional wisdom again) a good manager must be able to 1.Prioritize; 2.Organize. The authors say nothing of these abilities and obviously know little about them.

"This book, based on twenty years empirical data, you have to love that. After first reading this book in 2006, my reaction was "MAN! This is a validation of what my mentors showed me". I have had some GREAT mentors during my career, both in the military and later, as a civilian. They taught me how to see things outside of conventional wisdom (not merely ignore that wisdom). If I may now offer further review: The following will comprise of my impressions of the Conventional vs. Revolutionary Key Approaches, offered on pages 66 and 67 offered in FIRST BREAK ALL THE RULES (1999) by M. Buckingham and C. Coffman.

Conventional Key: "Select a person based on his experience, intelligence, and determination". There is nothing wrong with this statement in of itself. Let's say that there is are two candidates, one external, and one internal for one Engineering Change Order Coordinator position and the enterprise software system being used is Oracle. The external candidate does not have experience with the specified software, however has written thousands of ECOs, as well as cause and effect reports for their department. The other candidate has experience with exact software, however only minimal similar report writing. If the manager chooses the internal candidate due to the software experience, it may work fine in the long run. It can prove to be a better selection tool for the manager to use the Revolutionary Key: "When selecting someone, they select for talent, not simply experience, intelligence, and determination". In this case, the external candidate has a proven talent for working with personnel from multiple departments, in order to complete tasks that come with ECO writing. This individual will may likely have skill sets can perhaps cross over with minimal system training.

Conventional Key: "Set expectations by defining the right steps". Creating flowcharts to show the steps needed to complete a set of tasks is a good thing. Using the Revolutionary Key: "When setting expectations, they define the right outcomes, not the right steps", can prove better. Perhaps you still use Visio, but instead you reverse engineer the processes to find your prerequisites. Work the process backward, from your desired outcome, back to the start.

Conventional Key: "Motivate the person by helping him identify and overcome weaknesses". This less politically correct method of evaluating an employee, still fits well for some of the workers that reported to me. Their request was for me to "Tell me what I am doing wrong, so I can fix it." Revolutionary Key: "When motivating someone, they focus on strengths not weaknesses". For the most part, this approach has been the norm for myself, and the people that worked for me. The reviews that I wrote were geared more towards professional development in fact. I will not manufacture a weakness in someone, when one is not present! With influence from a previous manager, I began to have group study with the shop, install, and service foremen. Instead of having them read a book, we each studied a chapter a week. Each week, a different person would be assigned the chapter, and would write, and hand out a worksheet with a set of questions a couple days before we met, and then the team would discuss the assignment.

Conventional Key: "Develop the person by helping them learn and get promoted. Career path by default? There is a certain quaintness to the "paid your dues"Âpath. So, if the worker is one of the best, AND shows leadership potential, I would still recommend this process Revolutionary Key: When developing someone, they help him find the right fit not simply the next rung on the ladder. Truly a key point. Even if it is the "paid your dues path, finding there right fit, and then developing that individual to be able to handle the new level of responsibility.

Talent: "A recurring pattern of thought, feeling, or behavior that can be productively applied." Three recurring patterns that I feel a supervisor should have, are Ethics, Responsibility, And Command. A fairly cut and dry selection for me, as my most important mentors in the military and in business, all have had these talents

From the Striving Talents Ethics: A clear understanding of right and wrong, which guides your actions. Perhaps it is not telling your subordinate to lie to a supplier, or customer. Or maybe it is not being willing to have a good-old-boy network where you have your favorite workers stay in your office for extended meetings after lunch or smoke breaks with you, while the other workers are breaking knuckles turning wrenches. It is neither fair to the company, which expects work to be done during the periods that payroll is expected to compensate, nor those busting knuckles.